The present invention relates to improved methods for winding turns of wire on the core of a dynamo-electric machine component by a flyer winder.
Typically, such a core (xe2x80x9ccorexe2x80x9d as used herein refers to either a core or a stator core, or any core which implements the principles common to both of the aforementioned cores) is provided with slots for receiving the turns. Each turn spans between two slots. The slots are located around the center of the core at some angular distance from one another.
A slot on an armature is formed by the cavity between two armature arms. Typically, in a core having slots at a uniform angular distance from one another and having a uniform shape, a flyer winder forms a turn in slots that are at a specific angular distance from one another about the core. For example, a flyer winder generally winds turns into slots that are at an angular orientation of between about 130 and about 160 from one another about the core. When the core is positioned such that the central longitudinal axis of the core is perpendicular to the central longitudinal axis of the winder, the winder deposits wire from a wire delivery point, located on the winder arm, into two slots at an orientation of between 130xc2x0 and 160xc2x0 from one another by rotating the wire release point around the core. This method results in the turns being wound across many armature armsxe2x80x94as used herein, the term xe2x80x9carmature armsxe2x80x9d refers to the projections from the core that project outwards from the central longitudinal axis of the corexe2x80x94into the bottoms of an opposing pair of slots. The turn is formed as close as possible to the center of the core in order to pack the turns in more tightly and increase the number of turns in the slots.
However, when the slots on a single core, for example, are disposed at different angular distances from one another, and have different shapes from one another, it follows that different winding conditions e.g., wire guiding and flyer rotation with respect to the corexe2x80x94are required. Therefore, a single conventional flyer winder cannot wind turns into different slots because the winding conditions vary from slot to slot, or from pairs of slots to pairs of slots.
Therefore, it would be desirable to provide a method of winding cores wherein a core having a plurality of slots at different angular distance from one another, and/or having different shapes, can be wound using conventional flyer winders.
It is an object of this invention to provide a method of winding cores wherein a core having a plurality of slots at different angular distance from one another and having different shapes can be wound using conventional flyer winders.
A method for winding a plurality of slots in a core, a first portion of the slots being disposed at a first angular distance from one another, and a second portion of slots being disposed at a second, different, angular distance from one another, is provided. The method includes winding turns in each of the slots in the first portion and, after each of the slots in the first portion is substantially wound, winding turns in each of the slots in the second portion. The method of the invention may also be implemented for slot having different shapes.
In an alternative embodiment, successive armature arms may be wound one after the other, as opposed to winding across multiple arms at one time. In addition, each successive arm may be wound in an opposing angular direction than the preceding armxe2x80x94i.e., a first arm may be wound in a clockwise direction and a second, successive, arm may be wound in a counter-clockwise direction by a single winder. To prevent the wound turns of wire from entering the space between the armature arms in an uncontrolled fashion when the angular direction of the flyer arm is reversed, the opening between successive slots may preferably be shielded when the direction of the flyer arm is reversed, and then unshielded when the successive arm is wound.